Scandal – The Other Woman

As the office reels from the surprising outcome of Quinn’s (Katie Lowes) trial, Olivia (Kerry Washington) is called in by the wife (Lorraine Toussaint) of a missing preacher and prominent civil rights leader. It only takes the team a couple of hours to track him down, but when they find the reverend he’s dead in a cheap hotel room on top of his mistress (Elise Neal) who is trapped underneath his girth and chained to the bed. As you might expect, the image is not exactly how Olivia, the White House, or the man’s family would like him remembered.

With the help of Huck (Guillermo Díaz) and Abby (Darby Stanchfield), Olivia is able to relocate the man to his own bedroom before the police are called, thus preserving his legacy, but complications arise when the mistress isn’t willing to go away without some serious compensation for her loss to the tune of $6 million. As Abby plans the funeral and Harrison (Columbus Short) helps cover any trace of the affair, Olivia tries to negotiate the blackmail settlement before the mistress shares her story, and her son, with the world. Olivia also has to deal with a still infuriated David Rosen (Joshua Malina) snooping into the death which could blow the entire cover-up.

Other stories include President Grant (Tony Goldwyn) mulling over the U.S. intervening in the Sudan, Cyrus’ (Jeff Perry) discomfort over the timing of some questionable intelligence supplied by the CIA that might push the country into war, Cyrus and his husband’s (Dan Bucatinsky) continued quarrel over adopting a child, and Quinn jumping a plane home to have lunch with a father she hasn’t seen in to years only to find more disappointment.

The episode does a great job in paralleling the emotions of the widow and First Lady (Bellamy Young) and Olivia and the mistress involving the love, disappointment, and betrayal involving husbands, wives, and mistresses. We’re also given a meeting between Olivia and the newest Supreme Court justice (Debra Mooney) who is yet another link in the Quinn Perkins cover-up that a now suspended Daniel Rosen has nothing else to do but investigate.